Oculus Rift demonstrates the tedium of a cover-based shooter

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

So far, the big issue with the Oculus Rift is that, since the device is only available in a development kit release, users can only really try out very basic tech demos. Team Fortress 2 is relatively easy to set up with the Rift, but in practice, the twitch-based reactive gameplay makes it a chore to play — especially because you have to use a mouse in conjunction with the Rift. Now, a new demo created by Teddy Lipowitz, HydraDeck: Cover Shooter, does what he name suggests and shows us all what it would be like to play a cover-based shooter using the Oculus Rift.

The demo also employs the Razer Hydra, Razer’s motion controller, which provides the movement and gun-firing controls. Cover-based shooters — though the tactic is still employed in wildly popular series like Mass Effectand Uncharted — have recently gain notoriety as a cheap, boring mechanism. The HydraDeck doesn’t quite do cover-based shooting any justice, as the tedium of having to mechanically kneel and pop up from behind objects ad nauseam is on full display. However, the demo also shows how the Rift can be easily integrated into modern-day games, giving us hope for the virtual future.

The Rift and Hydra combination works seamlessly with the gameplay, and all you have to do to calibrate the rig beforehand is tap the Hydra controller to the back of your neck, and tape the other controller to your shirt (or stick it in a shirt pocket). The wand handles the vertical movement, while the controller handles the gun and horizontal movement. The Rift, of course, handles the virtual reality.

If you’re the sort that has a Rift and Hydra, as well as the know-how to get everything working together, you can grab the demo from the Rift developer forums.